u/FollowingRare6247

I think there’s reason to be optimistic myself, I’ll be more optimistic if any under-performers from last week are rooted out and changed.

Basically some injury updates. “…we might get the benefit of one or two of the internationals who didn’t play a lot of rugby on the summer tour.”, I can’t recall Casey getting many minutes so great to have him back. O’Donovan has good momentum though. I suppose a balanced approach is Casey off the bench (with O’Shea) for a bit, start after O’Donovan gets a good run of games?

Diarmuid Barron - wait and see, failed HIA 1 Mike Haley - 50/50, something with his leg Milne - is fine Edwin - about 2 weeks away Daly - will return Aungier - could return from a back injury Ahern - back next week?

“…McMillan added that Tom Ahern is recovering from an infected finger, caused by “slicing an apple or some f**king dumb thing like that.” lol.

Class act and has a genuine love and hunger for the game, well worth watching if you have a spare 12 minutes.

The last open training session was today, and there were two others.

For people that were there any observations/thoughts/interesting notes etc from these?

We won’t know much until next week perhaps (LaR preseason friendly), and even then it’ll take time for things to settle. But perhaps there’s some takeaways from what they’ve been doing.

New signings have joined the team at the HPC; Brooke’s, Harrison, Aungier, van der Merwe. Coaches Duffy and Payne also.

Academy graduates have begun their first pre season with the senior squad; Clein, S Edogbo, Foxe, O’Connor.

Beirne, Casey, and Loughman are off until later this summer.

Christian Foley began his pre season, the other U20s/new academy lads will join training at the HPC after the junior world championships; Christopher Barrett, Rob Carney, Jamie Conway, Joe Finn, Alex Lautsou, James O’Leary and Charlie O’Shea

So the situation with Salanoa is his contract will expire but he’ll be playing AIL in the new season hopefully.

From instagram, they got together to begin pre season today.

La Rochelle on 28 August. Will that be too early to see the NIQs/the 3 guys with Ireland? Coaches will also need time to settle in.

Everyone should be fit I assume.

>! NZ 40 - 21 IRE !<

>! NZ 28 - 7 IRE !<

>! JAP 20 - IRE 36 !<

POTM: >! Sean Jansen !<

>! JAP 13 - IRE 19 !<

Thoughts so far?

17 minutes!

They must not be confident with Salanoa or something.

Seems like this page will have information re the Japan game. Piardi to ref.

They’re coming off a win v Italy, who got no table points from it. Can’t underestimate them, but I still anticipate resting of key players.

There’s a website which should be good to consult for information as the tournament progresses - tables, stats, etc.

>! AUS 31 - IRE 33 !<

>! Holy shit, that was a game !<

>! POTM; Hugo Keenan !<

Edit: added POTM

The Connected to Camp series went down well during the 6N, we’ll be getting more of it again it seems.